Double or Nothing
by Naguabo
Summary: In his new job in Philadelphia, Coach Taylor decides to give a new player a chance in spite of a rather messy first meeting. Set a few weeks after the end of Season 5, episode 13.


**Double or Nothing**

For Coach Eric Taylor, living and working in Philadelphia took a whole lot of getting used to, and he'd been through enough moves to know that the adjustment wouldn't be over anytime soon. It wasn't just the fact that his wife's job was all of a sudden on a whole different level of status from his. Or that for the first time in his eighteen years coaching, they'd moved because of her job and not his. It wasn't even that he was working at a Catholic high school – Eric knew that he could have signed up to work at Tokyo Buddhist High or New Delhi Hindu if they'd offered him a nice contract and he and Tami could agree to live there. It was a million things, really: the traffic jams, the commuter trains, the high-rises, all the names of different places that were supposed to mean something but didn't yet. Even the voices he could hear around him were different. He still couldn't get over the fact that he was coaching a team called the Friars. Didn't those Pennsylvanians know that a fryer was a kind of chicken?

Anyway, he'd get used to it eventually. Right now he was working on what he was sure he knew how to do, which was being a coach. You didn't get to three state championships in five years – once with a school that didn't exist two years earlier - without doing something right, that was for sure.

As he strode across the gravel path in front of the gym, Coach Taylor was still getting used to things. It was only the tenth of September, but it was already jacket weather. The sun went down earlier than it did in Texas. The stadium was about a third of the size of Herrmann Field, even though the school had just about as many students as Dillon. The ground was wetter, with more leaves on it, and the air felt heavier even with no dust in it. But Philadelphia, Texas, or wherever, darned if he wasn't going to arrive at his practices at least twenty minutes early every time, to set a good example.

Some of the players were already there, standing around shooting the breeze. And there was this one kid who Coach Taylor was pretty sure he hadn't seen before, shifting nervously from foot to foot right in front of the doorway. The kid looked at him, then off to the side, then back at him, and then he seemed to stand a little straighter. A freshman or a sophomore, definitely.

"Excuse me, Coach Taylor?" the kid said in a voice that showed that even getting those four words out had been a challenge for him. He wasn't shifting his weight any longer: he was straining to stand straight, but his efforts ended somewhere just above his waist.

"Yeah, that's right." Coach said. "I don't think I know you." If he'd been back in Dillon, he would added "son" on the end of that, but that wasn't something you said to most kids here on the East Coast, as the assistant coaches had told him.

Coach Taylor took a mental step back and looked at the kid in front of him. He was about average height, and a bit wide without giving the impression of being either fat or muscular. His hair was somewhere between straight and curly, and his eyes were somewhere between brown and green. His glasses had fallen a third of the way down his nose and his head was leaning a bit sideways. He was wearing sweats, but in a different shade of green from the school colors, and they didn't reach the full way down his legs or along his arms. In spite of that, they didn't seem to have been worn much. His hands were twitching slightly, as though he were expecting to be holding something. Still, he didn't back up or move out of the way. A reporter from the school paper, or a student who wanted to do some kind of project on him, that had to be it.

"I'm Ray Fiorentino, from school," the boy said in a somewhat high voice and squeezed his hands together. "I wanted to ask you... is it possible... could I have a chance..." and then the words all ran together, "to try out for the team?"

And then the kid bent over and vomited loudly right onto Coach Taylor's new Monsignor Bonner High football jacket and sweatpants. A mixture of gasps and laughter erupted from the players who were standing around. This time Coach Taylor did take a step back and instinctively tried to shake off what he could. Ray had managed not to fall over, but just barely, and then he righted himself and put on the most mortified face Coach had ever seen, even more than when his daughter Julie'd had her first hangover.

"Coach, Jeez, I'm really sorry, that's never happened to me before, I must have had too much pizza for lunch or something, I mean it, Sir, that was lousy and I'm terribly sorry." Once he got in gear, if this kid could run as fast as he talked, he'd have a spot at wide receiver.

Coach reacted not like a coach or a father, but like a man whose new clothes have just been vomited on. "That's nice that you're _sorry_, kid, but being _sorry_ won't pay my cleaning bill. You want me to run a practice with this all over me?" He knew he was being unkind, but damn, he didn't take to being embarrassed in front of his players. And then as an afterthought, "You all right?"

Ray caught his breath and jerked his head sideways towards two players who were standing against the wall of the gym snickering to each other, a bull-necked defensive lineman with freckles and a blond crewcut and a dark-haired kid with long arms and a stubbly chin. Even at a moment like that, they had the swagger that showed they were starters from last year. "They'll pay for the cleaning bill, Coach."

"How d'you figure that now?" Coach's voice always got a bit more twangy when people said things that didn't make sense to him.

"Big Jay and Leo bet me fifty bucks that I didn't have the guts to try out for football, Sir. Now I'm here, so they owe me. If you'll give me a shot at being on the team, that is."

Coach Taylor rubbed his hand over his chin and then looked Ray Fiorentino right in the eye. To the kid's credit, he didn't flinch. "Have you played any ball before? Pop Warner, your middle school team, anything?"

"Just some touch and flag in middle school, Sir." Ray bowed his head a little. "Only the populars and the rich kids went out for the teams and I - didn't want to be around them much. Nothing else. But I love the game."

"Then why on Earth do you think you can be on this team?" Coach asked, in the same tone of voice he used with boosters who tried to tell him what plays to run.

"I'm a hard worker, Coach. Not much of an athlete, I know, but I'm good at learning things. And I managed to block Jay in PE class, Sir. Nobody expected that." Both Ray and Eric had to release a quick smile at that one.

"Ray, remind me of your friends' names a second."

"Jay Kaczynki, he's the one on the left, and Leo Anconitano, he led the team in tackles last year."

Coach Taylor took a step sideways "Kaczynski! Anaconda! Get over here quick." The boys immediately shuffled over and stood to his right. All the other players had gathered around them. Coach raised his voice deliberately, to make sure everyone could hear. "Your bet with Fiorentino here has just gone double or nothing."

"What do you mean, Coach?" Leo asked after a quick blink.

"I mean that if your boy makes the team – and he's gonna have a fair shot at it the same as anyone else does – you owe him a hundred bucks, not just fifty. If he doesn't make it, he owes that to you." A gasp went up from the crowd. "And the rest of you knuckleheads standing out here, get into the locker room and get yourselves ready for practice. Unless you don't want to be on the team."

"But Coach – that bet was between us-" Kaczynski protested with his eyes still wide.

"_I said_," Coach Taylor moved slightly forward, "get into the locker room _right now_ and get ready for practice. One more word and you run ten laps." The players immediately scuttled away. Then he turned to Fiorentino, who hadn't moved yet. "You go in too, Ray, and ask Jerry to help you get suited up."

"Coach, Sir, where am I supposed to find a hundred bucks?"

"Let me tell you something, son." Coach placed his bunched fist on top of the boy's shoulder. "My QB1 took us to the State finals two times in three years, and he worked every afternoon, and took care of his grandma all by himself, and had his dad away fighting in Iraq. I thought you said you were a hard worker."

"I'm up to it, Coach." Ray nodded his head quickly and headed for the gym.

Two hours later, he found out he hadn't lost the bet.

Four weeks after that, number 41 got his first tackle. And a high five from Leo.

In the Haverford game, he blocked for DeSean Croston's tenth rushing touchdown of the year.

He never started, but he made his contribution all the same.


End file.
